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Monday, June 20, 2011

Making a Brick

Circumstances and exhaustion allowed me to sleep in today. Picking up my guitar on a rainy morning, I was searching for how to begin, how to reconnect with my guitar. Since the Laboratory Collaboration performance on Friday night, I have not played much. When in doubt, work on technique was my thought. And so I did. Beginning with using the AT directions, I then did some work on my right hand arpeggios. Pausing frequently to check in how I was using my body, thinking length and width.

After 30 minutes of this, I began improvising in D. Playing around with drones, and also how to move between the major and minor scales in a musical way. Still paying attention to the AT work, I was once again feeling like a guitarist. I then played through Livin' the Dream and Matka Boska.

Remembering the musical idea I had for a poem by Ahron Taub from the Laboratory Collaboration called Danse Vivante, I began to explore what I had. When I presented the idea to the other musicians we were able to take off from there, yet I also had the notion that a solo piece may be contained within this nugget. As I continued exploring this one of my favorite Oblique Strategies came to mind - " not building a wall, but making a brick." I took the idea a little farther and made the effort to both record and notate what I had.

The bridge back to my practice has been crossed and tomorrow, I have a place to begin work on my next brick.